SIXTY FOUR

I really want/need a mixer like yours--ever since I managed to warp the blades on mine. Seems, though, lately I'd rather spend my money on lenses. -R

Before I got kicked out of the "Friendly City" of Petal, Mississippi, a few people paid me actual money to make birthday cakes for their children. At the time, I was using the 1969 hand mixer that my mother had purchased to blend my specialty-please-stop-my-baby-from-crying formula. One night the old mixer was finally dying, and I sent my husband to Wal-Mart with specific instructions to buy this mixer, on sale for $179.99. He called from the appliance section to inform me that sitting right next to the KitchenAid was an almost identical Sunbeam for one hundred dollars less. "If you come home without my KitchenAid, " I threatened, "it will be the last time you walk through the kitchen door."

Freaky-photo-coincidence note: I love that your first-born is wearing his Cinco de Mayo shirt while I am making a birthday cake for my first-born. At least I assume it's your first-born, since he's eating. -K